第 7 页

these few moments of release. Along with the child, he felt a

curious strain on him, a suffering, like a fate.

The mother came down again, and began folding the child's

clothes. He knocked. She opened wondering, a little bit at bay,

like a foreigner, uneasy.

"Good evening," he said. "I'll just come in a minute."

A change went quickly over her face; she was unprepared. She

looked down at him as he stood in the light from the window,

holding the daffodils, the darkness behind. In his black clothes

she again did not know him. She was almost afraid.

But he was already stepping on to the threshold, and closing

the door behind him. She turned into the kitchen, startled out

of herself by this invasion from the night. He took off his hat,

and came towards her. Then he stood in the light, in his black

clothes and his black stock, hat in one hand and yellow flowers

in the other. She stood away, at his mercy, snatched out of

herself. She did not know him, only she knew he was a man come

for her. She could only see the dark-clad man's figure standing

there upon her, and the gripped fist of flowers. She could not

see the face and the living eyes.

He was watching her, without knowing her, only aware

underneath of her presence.

"I come to have a word with you," he said, striding forward

to the table, laying down his hat and the flowers, which tumbled

apart and lay in a loose heap. She had flinched from his

advance. She had no will, no being. The wind boomed in the

chimney, and he waited. He had disembarrassed his hands. Now he

shut his fists.

He was aware of her standing there unknown, dread, yet

related to him.

"I came up," he said, speaking curiously matter-of-fact and

level, "to ask if you'd marry me. You are free, aren't you?"

There was a long silence, whilst his blue eyes, strangely

impersonal, looked into her eyes to seek an answer to the truth.

He was looking for the truth out of her. And she, as if

hypnotized, must answer at length.

"Yes, I am free to marry."

The expression of his eyes changed, became less impersonal,

as if he were looking almost at her, for the truth of her.

Steady and intent and eternal they were, as if they would never

change. They seemed to fix and to resolve her. She quivered,

feeling herself created, will-less, lapsing into him, into a

common will with him.

"You want me?" she said.

A pallor came over his face.

"Yes," he said.

Still there was no response and silence.

"No," she said, not of herself. "No, I don't know."

He felt the tension breaking up in him, his fists slackened,

he was unable to move. He stood there looking at her, helpless

in his vague collapse. For the moment she had become unreal to

him. Then he saw her come to him, curiously direct and as if

without movement, in a sudden flow. She put her hand to his

coat.

"Yes I want to," she said, impersonally, looking at him with

wide, candid, newly-opened eyes, opened now with supreme truth.

He went very white as he stood, and did not move, only his eyes

were held by hers, and he suffered. She seemed to see him with

her newly-opened, wide eyes, almost of a child, and with a

strange movement, that was agony to him, she reached slowly

forward her dark face and her breast to him, with a slow

insinuation of a kiss that made something break in his brain,

and it was darkness over him for a few moments.

He had her in his arms, and, obliterated, was kissing her.

And it was sheer, bleached agony to him, to break away from

himself. She was there so small and light and accepting in his

arms, like a child, and yet with such an insinuation of embrace,

of infinite embrace, that he could not bear it, he could not

stand.

He turned and looked for a chair, and keeping her still in

his arms, sat down with her close to him, to his breast. Then,

for a few seconds, he went utterly to sleep, asleep and sealed

in the darkest sleep, utter, extreme oblivion.

From which he came to gradually, always holding her warm and

close upon him, and she as utterly silent as he, involved in the

same oblivion, the fecund darkness.

He returned gradually, but newly created, as after a

gestation, a new birth, in the womb of darkness. Aerial and

light everything was, new as a morning, fresh and newly-begun.

Like a dawn the newness and the bliss filled in. And she sat

utterly still with him, as if in the same.

Then she looked up at him, the wide, young eyes blazing with

light. And he bent down and kissed her on the lips. And the dawn

blazed in them, their new life came to pass, it was beyond all

conceiving good, it was so good, that it was almost like a

passing-away, a trespass. He drew her suddenly closer to

him.

For soon the light began to fade in her, gradually, and as

she was in his arms, her head sank, she leaned it against him,

and lay still, with sunk head, a little tired, effaced because

she was tired. And in her tiredness was a certain negation of

him.

"There is the child," she said, out of the long silence.

He did not understand. It was a long time since he had heard

a voice. Now also he heard the wind roaring, as if it had just

begun again.

"Yes," he said, not understanding. There was a slight

contraction of pain at his heart, a slight tension on his brows.

Something he wanted to grasp and could not.

"You will love her?" she said.

The quick contraction, like pain, went over him again.

"I love her now," he said.

She lay still against him, taking his physical warmth without

heed. It was great confirmation for him to feel her there,

absorbing the warmth from him, giving him back her weight and

her strange confidence. But where was she, that she seemed so

absent? His mind was open with wonder. He did not know her.

"But I am much older than you," she said.

"How old?" he asked.

"I am thirty-four," she said.

"I am twenty-eight," he said.

"Six years."

She was oddly concerned, even as if it pleased her a little.

He sat and listened and wondered. It was rather splendid, to be

so ignored by her, whilst she lay against him, and he lifted her

with his breathing, and felt her weight upon his living, so he

had a completeness and an inviolable power. He did not interfere

with her. He did not even know her. It was so strange that she

lay there with her weight abandoned upon him. He was silent with

delight. He felt strong, physically, carrying her on his

breathing. The strange, inviolable completeness of the two of

them made him feel as sure and as stable as God. Amused, he

wondered what the vicar would say if he knew.

"You needn't stop here much longer, housekeeping," he

said.

"I like it also, here," she said. "When one has been in many

places, it is very nice here."

He was silent again at this. So close on him she lay, and yet

she answered him from so far away. But he did not mind.

"What was your own home like, when you were little?" he

asked.

"My father was a landowner," she replied. "It was near a

river."

This did not convey much to him. All was as vague as before.

But he did not care, whilst she was so close.

"I am a landowner--a little one," he said.

"Yes," she said.

He had not dared to move. He sat there with his arms round

her, her lying motionless on his breathing, and for a long time

he did not stir. Then softly, timidly, his hand settled on the

roundness of her arm, on the unknown. She seemed to lie a little

closer. A hot flame licked up from his belly to his chest.

But it was too soon. She rose, and went across the room to a

drawer, taking out a little tray-cloth. There was something

quiet and professional about her. She had been a nurse beside

her husband, both in Warsaw and in the rebellion afterwards. She

proceeded to set a tray. It was as if she ignored Brangwen. He

sat up, unable to bear a contradiction in her. She moved about

inscrutably.

Then, as he sat there, all mused and wondering, she came near

to him, looking at him with wide, grey eyes that almost smiled

with a low light. But her ugly-beautiful mouth was still unmoved

and sad. He was afraid.

His eyes, strained and roused with unusedness, quailed a

little before her, he felt himself quailing and yet he rose, as

if obedient to her, he bent and kissed her heavy, sad, wide

mouth, that was kissed, and did not alter. Fear was too strong

in him. Again he had not got her.

She turned away. The vicarage kitchen was untidy, and yet to

him beautiful with the untidiness of her and her child. Such a

wonderful remoteness there was about her, and then something in

touch with him, that made his heart knock in his chest. He stood

there and waited, suspended.

Again she came to him, as he stood in his black clothes, with

blue eyes very bright and puzzled for her, his face tensely

alive, his hair dishevelled. She came close up to him, to his

intent, black-clothed body, and laid her hand on his arm. He

remained unmoved. Her eyes, with a blackness of memory

struggling with passion, primitive and electric away at the back

of them, rejected him and absorbed him at once. But he remained

himself. He breathed with difficulty, and sweat came out at the

roots of his hair, on his forehead.

"Do you want to marry me?" she asked slowly, always

uncertain.

He was afraid lest he could not speak. He drew breath hard,

saying:

"I do."

Then again, what was agony to him, with one hand lightly

resting on his arm, she leaned forward a little, and with a

strange, primeval suggestion of embrace, held him her mouth. It

was ugly-beautiful, and he could not bear it. He put his mouth

on hers, and slowly, slowly the response came, gathering force

and passion, till it seemed to him she was thundering at him

till he could bear no more. He drew away, white, unbreathing.

Only, in his blue eyes, was something of himself concentrated.

And in her eyes was a little smile upon a black void.

She was drifting away from him again. And he wanted to go

away. It was intolerable. He could bear no more. He must go. Yet

he was irresolute. But she turned away from him.

With a little pang of anguish, of denial, it was decided.

"I'll come an' speak to the vicar to-morrow," he said, taking

his hat.

She looked at him, her eyes expressionless and full of

darkness. He could see no answer.

"That'll do, won't it?" he said.

"Yes," she answered, mere echo without body or meaning.

"Good night," he said.

"Good night."

He left her standing there, expressionless and void as she

was. Then she went on laying the tray for the vicar. Needing the

table, she put the daffodils aside on the dresser without

noticing them. Only their coolness, touching her hand, remained

echoing there a long while.

They were such strangers, they must for ever be such

strangers, that his passion was a clanging torment to him. Such

intimacy of embrace, and such utter foreignness of contact! It

was unbearable. He could not bear to be near her, and know the

utter foreignness between them, know how entirely they were

strangers to each other. He went out into the wind. Big holes

were blown into the sky, the moonlight blew about. Sometimes a

high moon, liquid-brilliant, scudded across a hollow space and

took cover under electric, brown-iridescent cloud-edges. Then

there was a blot of cloud, and shadow. Then somewhere in the

night a radiance again, like a vapour. And all the sky was

teeming and tearing along, a vast disorder of flying shapes and

darkness and ragged fumes of light and a great brown circling

halo, then the terror of a moon running liquid-brilliant into

the open for a moment, hurting the eyes before she plunged under

cover of cloud again.

CHAPTER II

THEY LIVE AT THE MARSH

She was the daughter of a Polish landowner who, deeply in

debt to the Jews, had married a German wife with money, and who

had died just before the rebellion. Quite young, she had married

Paul Lensky, an intellectual who had studied at Berlin, and had

returned to Warsaw a patriot. Her mother had married a German

merchant and gone away.

Lydia Lensky, married to the young doctor, became with him a

patriot and an emancipee. They were poor, but they

were very conceited. She learned nursing as a mark of her

emancipation. They represented in Poland the new movement just

begun in Russia. But they were very patriotic: and, at the same

time, very "European".

They had two children. Then came the great rebellion. Lensky,

very ardent and full of words, went about inciting his

countrymen. Little Poles flamed down the streets of Warsaw, on

the way to shoot every Muscovite. So they crossed into the south

of Russia, and it was common for six little insurgents to ride

into a Jewish village, brandishing swords and words, emphasizing

the fact that they were going to shoot every living

Muscovite.

Lensky was something of a fire-eater also. Lydia, tempered by

her German blood, coming of a different family, was obliterated,

carried along in her husband's emphasis of declaration, and his

whirl of patriotism. He was indeed a brave man, but no bravery

could quite have equalled the vividness of his talk. He worked

very hard, till nothing lived in him but his eyes. And Lydia, as

if drugged, followed him like a shadow, serving, echoing.

Sometimes she had her two children, sometimes they were left

behind.

She returned once to find them both dead of diphtheria. Her

husband wept aloud, unaware of everybody. But the war went on,

and soon he was back at his work. A darkness had come over

Lydia's mind. She walked always in a shadow, silenced, with a

strange, deep terror having hold of her, her desire was to seek

satisfaction in dread, to enter a nunnery, to satisfy the